At camp, the kids build a miniature city out of sticks and grass in the dirt. Audrey explains there are houses and buildings and trees and military bases and two lakes. She pauses for a moment and corrects herself, “No, three lakes”. She tells me this once we’re already in the car and now the business-like manner in which I saw her speak with another girl by the picnic tables after I’d signed her out makes sense. They were probably going over construction plans for the following day.

She says all the kids involved in the city project have titles like President, Vice President, VIP, and Major Major Major Major. Before I can ask why all the Majors, she says everyone starts at Minor Minor Minor Minor. “I see,” I lie.

I ask her what her title is and she says VIP and then corrects herself and says “I mean VP. That stands for Vice President. Next summer we’ll hold another election.” I get the impression she’s already campaigning.

We’re riding in the car with her older sister at the wheel and it occurs to me that the kids might run out of suitable sticks near camp base and want to rummage in the woods for more. “Stay out of the woods,” I say. “There’s poison ivy.”

“It can also be shiny,” I add, knowing I couldn’t pick poison ivy out of a line-up even after repeated, crippling run-ins with it throughout childhood. One summer when I was about Audrey’s age, I went to camp and came home with poison ivy and head lice. To be fair, we weren’t sure where I picked up the poison ivy.

I used to have a soft spot for those brown and cream striped caterpillars that are suddenly everywhere mid-summer. I’d line a cardboard box with shiny, soft green leaves picked from the woods across the street from our house. Then I’d lean sticks against the box walls like a series of intersecting catwalks and pluck dozens of caterpillars from trees and drop them into the box. I kept them as outdoor pets for a day or two or until they figured out they had always been free to climb out of the box. I took them out of the box and let them crawl across my hands and arms and even my face. I can’t tell this story now without blanching.

A week later I found myself at the doctor’s office with a case of poison ivy so bad I needed steroid injections. My mother cut up old pillow cases and wrapped them around my hands at night so I wouldn’t scratch in my sleep. She applied wet oatmeal and witch hazel and calamine compresses at all hours, but nothing stopped the itching.

We had already planned an overnight trip to New York City and I wore blocky dark sunglasses to disguise my swollen, misshapen face. The subway attendant took tokens for my parents and brother but frowned when he saw me and said “She rides free.” We joked afterwards that maybe he thought I was blind or had Elephant Man’s disease. The only blindness I had was an inability to distinguish poison ivy from other leafy green plants.

I never played with caterpillars again after that summer. They were still everywhere – chugging along at a maddening but determined pace across sidewalks and dangling helplessly from low branches – but they became invisible until just a few years ago. I had been jogging along a paved path when I noticed a few crawling across and thought “Oh!” in delight at first and then in a more guarded way.

***

“Just watch out for plants with leaves of three,” I tell both daughters in the car, satisfied this is the best advice I am qualified to give. I still don’t know how I got the job of teaching our older daughter how to drive. Years ago I struck a deal with my husband that he would teach Vanessa and I would teach Audrey. I may have planned on seven more years to prepare, but life happens and his work schedule doesn’t align with hers. Weeks slip by with no driving practice while her expectations about getting a license and buying a car with the money she’s been saving are still there. I start taking her to drive tentative circles around empty parking lots.

The first time I take her out on a real road, I grip the passenger side armrest until my knuckles ache. I bark things like “Slow down!” or “STOP!” as if a child has just wandered out between two parked cars, when really it’s nothing more than a pair of red taillights up ahead, not even that close. Part of the dread I feel towards these driving lessons comes from my own poor reactions.

Vanessa doesn’t quite get up to the speed limit and a white SUV tails too close behind. I think to myself Vanessa is driving too close to the right shoulder but keep quiet until she brushes against an overgrown hedge by the elementary school. I say “Pull Over” in what I mean to be a calm tone but couldn’t be. She remembers her turn signal at the last minute and sheepishly pulls into the school lot while the hovering white SUV blares its horn and speeds past.

I consider cutting her lesson short and putting myself back in control. I don’t remember going out to drive much with my own parents when I had a learners permit. I do remember the time I borrowed their car and swiped a parked car and then lied about it, poorly. My parents figured it out the same day and I wasn’t allowed to drive for weeks, which felt more like a gift than punishment.

I take a deep breath and tell my daughter to get back on the road and try to drive closer to the yellow line, though not too close. I try to give shorter instructions and watch my pitch. Once we are safely home, I feel shaky and weak but not relieved.

I go online and browse car magnets that warn STUDENT DRIVER in bold black against a bright yellow background. I see some that also include Please Be Patient! underneath but already the regular ones remind me of those Baby On Board signs that were popular in the 80s. Even as a child I wondered why the safety of a stranger’s baby was more important than my own infant sister hurtling through peril in our un-stickered car.

I usually take the time to read a few customer reviews and questions before buying anything. This is where I might learn, for instance, that the 3-pack of Student Driver magnets I am considering don’t actually stick or maybe they are only 3-inches wide. My eye draws to a question someone posted: “Do you think three of these will be enough? I’m tempted to cover my car in them. I don’t want anyone honking at my precious angel.” I laugh out loud and add the magnets to my cart and only then feel something like relief.

18 thoughts on “The VIPs”

Not officially, Wendy. I’ve been reading a lot lately and sometimes that makes me want to write differently or try out new topics. It’s nice to have a blog to write freely, you know? Thanks for reading!

I really do love your writing….the meandering, the feeling, as a reader, that I don’t exactly know where we’re going. The connection between poison ivy and driving and keeping our dearest ones safe.
Really lovely.
I actually want to hear you read this…I don’t know where you live, but is there a MOTH in your area? This would be a great story to tell…

We do or used to anyway. It’s great fun to observe from the audience. But I know I read part of this aloud to my kid and her eyes glazed over. Storytelling is a gift and I admire those with a knack for it.

I loved your themes of three in this. Did you do that on purpose…or was it a happy accident (hint: there are no accidents!)
Your free writes are some of the best. I can literally (yes, literally) feel my breathing get steady when I start to read your work. It’s soothing, full of imagery and much like meditating. I love it!
As for the poison ivy – let me know if you need more lessons in identification. I’ll send you photos from my back yard. Yikes!

I had to reread to find the threes you were talking about. What does it all mean? Probably that I should take you up on that offer for photographs. My husband offered to show me some in our backyard. Yikes indeed.

This was such a relief in the middle of what’s been a miserable day. So thank you.
I’ve been down the student driver road. Since then, my wife’s handled it, for obvious reasons.
Around here, there surfaced a caterpillar that can cause a severe rash just by touching it. Take that, poison ivy!

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